“A document was found on one of the slain. I…I learned that news, too.”
“Laird MacPherson,” came a ragged whisper as Roger suddenly seemed to struggle to catch his breath. “God help me…the pain.”
Julianna could see that his face had gone stark white in the moonlight as he moaned through clenched teeth. Fearing that she would be unable to assist him to the hut after all, she wondered desperately what she could say to him to spur him to move in spite of his agony…
“Oh, God, no…wolves.”
“Wolves?” he echoed, lifting his head to gaze around them.
“Yes, I just saw one over there!” Julianna scrambled to her feet and pointed in the opposite direction of the hut. “And there’s another one—you must get up! Here, let me help you.”
She bent down even as he sat upright with a ragged moan and struggled to his feet, cursing and grunting by turns while she did her best to assist him.
Her arm braced around his waist.
His arm resting heavily upon her shoulders as she steered him, Roger half stumbling, toward the hut thickly covered by ivy that had long been her refuge.
“You mustn’t stop…please, we’re almost there,” she urged him, grunting herself at the weight of him against her, the Highlander towering above her even with his head slumped to his chest in pain.
His whole body had begun to tremble on unsteady knees, and she feared with each plodding step that they weren’t going to make it to the hut before he collapsed to the ground.
The moon was covered by clouds now, which left them deep in darkness, but she knew the way around these woods as surely as she lived and breathed.
“A few steps more…Roger, listen to me! Only a few steps more.”
Julianna was certain she was nearing collapse, too, her arms aching and the taste of blood in her mouth from biting her lower lip. She groaned with relief to spy the hut—and he must have seen it, too. With great effort he summoned the last of his strength to walk faster, his breathing more a deep rattle now that alarmed her.
Somehow she managed to open the creaky wooden door without letting go of him and warned him to duck his head so he could enter, Roger sinking to his knees as soon as they stepped inside.
Heaving a ragged sigh, he slumped forward onto the dirt floor and Julianna knew in the dim lamplight that there would be no moving him. She had barely managed to extricate herself from what had felt like the dead weight of his arm just before he collapsed.
The white-speckled fawn bleating in fear and darting into a corner.
The young owl flapping its wings and hooting from its perch near the hearth.
The squirrel chattering with fright and scurrying beneath a rough-hewn table while Julianna rushed to shut the door.
“Shh, now, it’s me…no need to be afraid,” she sought to soothe the startled creatures, though she wondered with heightened concern if she had pushed Roger too hard to get him to the hut.
He was unconscious, or nearly so, which was almost a relief that he was no longer groaning so wretchedly in pain.
With an urgent sense of purpose, Julianna set to work by first covering him with a woolen blanket and then rushing to start a warming fire in the hearth.
It was just as well that he had collapsed upon the floor because the narrow cot would have broken to pieces under his weight.
He was a big man…a strapping man, his body taking up much of the space as she gingerly stepped around him.
She had so much to do before she could leave him and return to the manor before dawn.
First, she must concoct a potion to ease his pain and try to get him to swallow it, and then she would have to cut away his leather armor so she could examine his ribs. Or mayhap it was best simply to let him sleep for a few hours. At least in the hut he was safe and warm—
“You lied tae me about the wolves, aye?”
His voice barely a whisper, Julianna gulped and nodded, her cheeks flushing with warmth. She stared back at his half-open eyes, his dark brown hair matted with sweat from his exertion, his face more handsome in the flickering light from the hearth fire than any man’s she had ever seen.
“It’s no matter. You’re a kindhearted lass tae help me…”
“Julianna,” she murmured, but already his eyes had closed and his body seemed to relax into unconsciousness—his breathing still labored but steady.
